Quotes of the day

Politicians can’t do much to fix an economy, but they’re great at wrecking one.--Glenn Reynolds

We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion … we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.--Lueo Ping, China Regulatory Commission

The politicians sold TARP to America’s credit junkies as the fix for their credit woes. But they failed to mention that loose lending is exactly what created the mess with the banks in the first place. The good news is that judging by today’s CEO testimony, the banks are not in such bad shape anymore. TARP worked. Everything will be fine. If you believe the CEOs.--Evan Newmark

... [there is] obvious uncertainty that comes from modeling a hypothetical package rather than the final legislation passed by the Congress.--Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein

I sat here in front of my television and laughed at Maxine Waters, because her apparently random ramblings are a true spectacle. One laughs because one can't cry. But this woman is sitting on the House Financial Services Committee. She is supposed to help craft the bills that govern our financial system. And she clearly doesn't have the first shred of an inkling of a clue of how said financial system works. Her questions had the air of someone who couldn't quite wrap her mind around the complexities of the E-Z Reader consumer activist pamphlets from which she had presumably cribbed them.--Megan McArdle

But coming after four months of the TARP's dizzying billions spent in futility, we get a president proposing to spend nearly $1,000,000,000,000 on what he calls "stimulus." Even a populace numb to its government's compulsive spending woke up to that fantastic sum.--Daniel Henninger

Transparency is not in President Obama’s best interest right now. Thus, the political urgency to get a bill on his desk he can sign.--Karen Henretty

Consider high trade barriers, farm price supports and production limits, price and entry regulations in transportation and energy, interest rate caps and branching restrictions, national-origin immigration quotas -- does Paul Krugman really wish to defend such things? Yet all of those policies--along with the labor laws, high minimum wage, and progressive tax rates that Krugman does celebrate--were constituent elements of the postwar economic order. All shared the same bias in favor of producer welfare at the expense of consumer welfare.--Brink Lindsey

If we tried to suppress the expansion of the subprime market, do you think that would have gone over very well with the Congress? When it looked as though we were dealing with a major increase in home ownership, which is of unquestioned value to this society — would we have been able to do that? I doubt it.--Alan Greenspan

Real victories against malaria would be great, but false victories can mislead and distract critical malaria efforts. Alas, [Bill and Melinda] Gates are repeating numbers that have already been discredited.--William Easterly